re slily, is underhand. It is a kind of bribery."

"Faix, then, it's not c'ruption anyhow, for the baste is as c'rupt as he
can be already. An', sure, wouldn't it just be bribin' a blackguard not
to commit murther?"

"I don't know, Pat. It is a horrible position to be placed in. Poor,
poor Tom!"

"Have ye had supper?" asked Flinders, quickly.

"No--I cannot eat."

"Cook it then, an' don't be selfish. Other people can ait, though ye
can't. It'll kape yer mind employed--an I'll want somethin' to cheer me
up whin I come back."

Pat Flinders left the tent abruptly, and poor Fred went about the
preparation of supper in a half mechanical way, wondering what his
comrade meant by his strange conduct.

Pat's meaning was soon made plain, that night, to a dozen or so of his
friends, whom he visited personally and induced to accompany him to a
sequestered dell in an out-of-the-way thicket where the moonbeams
struggled through the branches and drew a lovely pale-blue pattern on
the green-sward.

"My frinds," he said, in a low, mysterious voice, "I know that ivery
mother's son of ye is ready to fight for poor Tom Brixton to-morrow, if
the wust comes to the wust. Now, it has occurred to my chum Westly an'
me, that it would be better, safer, and surer to buy him up, than to
fight for him, an' as I know some o' you fellers has dug up more goold
than you knows well what to do wid, an' you've all got liberal hearts--
lastewise ye should have, if ye haven't--I propose, an' second the
resolootion, that we make up some five hundred pounds betune us, an'
presint it to Bully Gashford as a mark of our estaim--if he'll on'y give
us up the kay o' the prison, put Patrick Flinders, Esquire, sintry over
it, an' then go to slape till breakfast-time tomorry mornin'."

This plan was at once agreed to, for five hundred pounds was not a large
sum to be made up by men who--some of them at least--had nearly made
"their pile"--by which they meant their fortune, while the liberality of
heart with which they had been credited was not wanting. Having settled
a few details, this singular meeting broke up, and Patrick Flinders--
acting as the secretary, treasurer, and executive committee--went off,
with a bag of golden nuggets and unbounded self-confidence, to transact
the business.

CHAPTER SIX.

Gashford was not quite so ready to accept Flinders's offer as that
enthusiast had expected. The bully seemed to be in a strangely unusual
m